A temptation of subcultural intellectualism is wanting to adopt to esoteric takes for roughly same reason you might want to wear uniquely “you” clothes. This poses a problem when best arguments are in fact boring, familiar ones that are commodities in intellectual fashion sense.
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You get zero intellectual cred/taste points for holding the view. Supporters criticize you for disappointing them with lack of originality, critics gleefully attack you for not footnoting with rebutals of a thousand familiar criticisms. Everybody assumes you’re stuck in the past.
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To casual observers it seems like you’re defending a lazy take out of reactionary denialism
Basically you win nothing socially and even lose cred. Which means where you do hold normcore positions, you kinda have to bet your beliefs at fundamental levels beneath social rewards
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It’s basically about shorting intellectual fashions in order to bet on an unfashionably persistent condition that everybody has become bored by, but hasn’t actually changed or been affected by unhappy people trying to shake things up and disturb the boring equilibrium
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Sounds like "Lindy" ideas to me - which, as you point out, people often ignore
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Lindy is a blackbox statistical test. I tend to analyze the position, not blindly accept it in proportion to antiquity. Typically I land on established but not ancient positions. Usually ~25-30y old. I suspect I’m most likely to trust ideas about as old as me.
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True, I think Lindy without reference to context is misleading - yes, there are Roman bridges still in use, but there are waaaaay more Roman bridges that have collapsed and vanished. But its value is in pointing out that good ideas don't often die of old age alone
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